This Is Your Dream of Us
by luvsbitca
Summary: Something wakes Robbie in the middle of the night. Someone he was married to and lost too soon visits him in a dream. Someone else is in his bed. Written for the 2014 Fright Fest at lewis challenge on LJ.


**Title:** This Is Your Dream of Us**  
>Author:<strong> Moonbeam**  
>CharactersPairing:** Robbie Lewis/Val Lewis, and either Robbie/Hathaway or Robbie/Laura depending on preference. **  
>Rating:<strong> General  
><strong>Wordcount:<br>Warnings:** Nothing…  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>Nothing is mine…  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Something wakes Robbie in the middle of the night. Someone he was married to and lost too soon visits him in a dream. Someone else is in his bed.  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> I tried to write something about vampires or werewolves and I end up with a very sappy Val visits Robbie in a dream and gives him permission to move on story. It's not scary…alas, maybe next year.  
>Personally, this is HathawayLewis for me but I didn't want to cut out people who prefer Laura so the person in his bed is deliberately ambiguous.  
>Written for the 2014 Fright Fest at lewis_challenge on LJ.<p>

**This Is Your Dream of Us**  
>by Moonbeam<p>

Robbie woke with a start, sweat gathered on his back. He reached out for the lamp next to his bed and turned it on causing the other occupant of the bed to turn and grumble.

"Sorry," he muttered, even as he looked around the room searching for whatever woke him.

There was nothing but he could have sworn that _something_ woke him.

He shook his head and tried to get back to sleep but nothing worked. He pulled himself out of bed and went down into the lounge room. He turned on the TV and grumbled to himself about the cold winter they were in the middle of and the trials of middle-age.

/\/\/\

Robbie knew he was dreaming. Everything was a little too bright and a little too perfect to ever be real.

He was reminded of that sci-fi show his Lynn's husband had made him watch. Things couldn't be too perfect because it just couldn't be real.

Robbie knew he was dreaming but he didn't know what he was dreaming about. He was sitting on a beach – not the type he'd visited in England but the sandy expanses of blue and white that seemed to stretch forever that he had only see in photos and his short trip to Australia.

He wriggled his toes in the sand but there was no sound and he felt like he could remember a sound when he'd done this in real life.

Robbie turned in a circle looking for something that could tell him why he was on this beach. There was nothing but sand, water, and dunes. Robbie felt himself mentally shrug and walked towards the water. He could see the waves lapping around his feet but he couldn't feel the cold touch of the water. He frowned down at his own feet and then startled when he heard his name behind him.

"Robbie."

Robbie turned around and stared at Val. It wasn't the Val he'd lost. It was the Val he'd first met with long hair and skin so smooth and without the freckles that she'd gained over their married life. He could remember the dress she was wearing – the same one she'd been wearing the night he asked her to marry him. He hadn't even thought about that dress in years but he could remember the way the fabric had felt under his hand as he'd pulled her close and kissed her after she'd said yes.

"Val?"

She smiled at him softly, the same way she used to smile at their children.

"Val, what am I doing here?"

"Visiting," she said softly, walking over to him.

"Visiting?"

"You aren't sure what to do, my Robbie," she'd called him that whenever she was going to give him advice he didn't want to hear. "But you know what you want."

Robbie suddenly thought back to the body that had been in bed next to him all night. The kiss the night before. The tentative press of hand to flesh. He shook the thoughts away and stared at his wife.

"He gave me peace when he found the person responsible, Robbie."

"You shouldn't have died."

She shook her head at him. "I know you don't believe, my Robbie, and I'm not going to tell you to but I had a good life. I loved you, I had our children, and now I watch over you and I watch over them and I am happy."

"Is there a heaven?"

"What would your James say?"

Robbie thought about the awkward way the younger man would look at him when asked about religion. "I think he would recite a speech given by someone from the Middle Ages about the futility of thinking we know more than we do of the world."

"Then I think you have your answer."

"That's not an answer."

"I can't tell you anything, Robbie. It is the human condition that you need to make your own mind up."

Robbie sighed; he didn't remember her being cryptic. "If you can't tell me anything then why are you here?"

"Because it's okay."

"What?"

"It's okay to love someone else. It's healthy to have let someone else into your heart. You always had more love to give than you realised."

Robbie thought back to the person asleep in his bed. "I still love you."

"You're a copper; you have seen your fair share of people in love with more than one person. Loving someone else doesn't diminish what we shared and loving me doesn't change the fact that you want them in your life for the rest of your life."

"However long that might be."

Val smiled again and cupped the side of his face. Robbie sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly against the desire to cry at the sudden rush of feeling. He could feel her hand. He could smell her, the perfume she wore but also the smell of her just after a shower when the smell of soap and shampoo would waft out of the bathroom and wrap around him. The ring on her finger felt cold against his skin. Her skin felt warm though and he couldn't resist pulling her close and burying in his face in her neck. He remembered the pain just after she died and it hit him again like new making him clutch at her. She held him, tightly, until he was able to breathe and pull away on his own.

Val wiped her thumb under his eyes, pushing the tears away and leaving behind something lighter than had been there before.

"I'm dead, Robbie, but I'll never really be gone and I'm going to love you always just like you'll love me. Now I want you to wake up and I want you to follow your heart wherever it leads you."

Robbie nodded.

"And I know Lynn is going to be okay with your decision."

Robbie smiled – Val always had known what he was thinking better than he did. "And Mark?"

"He's on his own journey."

"I miss you," Robbie said, holding onto her wrist tightly.

"We shared a life together."

"It was a good one."

"Except when you'd miss dinner." Val said with a wistful smile.

"I wasn't there enough."

"You were always there in the right ways and we had a very good life."

"I love-"

"I know."

Robbie shook his head. "I do love you but I was talking about-"

"I know."

Robbie looked at her and knew she understood. That he could love someone else. He reached out for her again and pulled her into him. Robbie pressed his lips to hers and…

"Robbie,"

Robbie felt a hand on his shoulder and woke with a start. "What?"

"You feel asleep."

Robbie looked around his lounge room and then blinked up at the blonde in front of him. "Something woke me up."

"If you sleep down here you won't be able to move tomorrow."

"You're right," Robbie said, forcing himself to stand up and holding onto the other person's wrist. "Let's go back to bed."

Robbie led the way back to bed without letting go. He wasn't letting go. He had never wanted to but he might have if things had been different.

"Are you okay?"

"More than," Robbie said, striding into the bedroom. "How about we see a movie tomorrow, that one you were talking about at dinner?"

"That would be nice."

"Good."

Robbie slid into bed and waited for the bed to dip next to him. He felt he was much too old and set in his own sleeping habits to be a cuddler but he bent his knee until it was pressing into warm flesh and let out a contended noise.

"Night, love."

"Night," a quiet voice came back.

Robbie feel back to sleep content with the idea of waking up next to the person next to him as often as he was able for the rest of his life.

**The End**


End file.
